YiddishYiddish (ייִדיש, יידיש or אידיש, yidish/idish, lit.
"Jewish", pronounced [ˈjɪdɪʃ] [ˈɪdɪʃ]; in older sources
ייִדיש-טײַטש Yidish-Taitsh, lit. Judaeo-German)[3] is the
historical language of the Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the
9th century[4] in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi
community with a High German-based vernacular fused with elements
taken from Hebrew and Aramaic as well as from
Slavic languagesSlavic languages and
traces of Romance languages.[5][6]
YiddishYiddish is written with a fully
vocalized version of the Hebrew alphabet.
The earliest surviving references date from the 12th century and call
the language לשון־אַשכּנז‎ (loshn-ashknaz, "language of
Ashkenaz") or טײַטש‎ (taytsh), a variant of tiutsch, the
contemporary name for Middle High German. Colloquially, the language
is sometimes called מאַמע־לשון‎ (mame-loshn, lit. "mother
tongue"), distinguishing it from לשון־קדש‎ (loshn koydesh,
"holy tongue"), meaning Hebrew and Aramaic. The term "Yiddish", short
for Yidish Taitsh "Jewish German", did not become the most frequently
used designation in the literature until the 18th century. In the late
19th and into the 20th century the language was more commonly called
"Jewish", especially in non-Jewish contexts, but "Yiddish" is again
the more common designation.
Modern
YiddishYiddish has two major forms. Eastern
YiddishYiddish is far more common
today. It includes Southeastern (Ukrainian–Romanian), Mideastern
(Polish–Galician–Eastern Hungarian), and Northeastern
(Lithuanian–Belarusian) dialects. Eastern
YiddishYiddish differs from
Western both by its far greater size and by the extensive inclusion of
words of Slavic origin. Western
YiddishYiddish is divided into Southwestern
(Swiss–Alsatian–Southern German), Midwestern (Central German), and
Northwestern (Netherlandic–Northern German) dialects.
YiddishYiddish is
used in a number of Haredi Jewish communities worldwide, and is the
first language of the home, school, and in many social settings among
many Haredi Jews, and is used in most Hasidic and many Lithuanian
yeshivas.
The term
YiddishYiddish is also used in the adjectival sense, synonymously
with Jewish, to designate attributes of
Yiddishkeit ("Ashkenazi
culture"; for example,
YiddishYiddish cooking and "
YiddishYiddish music":
klezmer).[7]
Prior to the Holocaust, there were 11—13 million speakers of Yiddish
among 17 million
JewsJews worldwide.[8] 85% of the approximately 6 million
JewsJews who died in the Holocaust were
YiddishYiddish speakers,[9] leading to a
massive decline in the use of the language. Assimilation following
World War IIWorld War II further decreased the use of
YiddishYiddish both among survivors
and Yiddish-speakers from other countries (such as in the Americas).
However, the number of speakers is increasing in Hasidic communities.

Origins[edit]
The established view is that, as with other Jewish languages, Jews
speaking distinct languages learned new co-territorial vernaculars,
which they then Judaized. In the case of Yiddish, this scenario sees
it as emerging when speakers of Zarphatic and other Judeo-Romance
languages began to acquire varieties of Middle High German, and from
these groups the Ashkenazi community took shape.[10][11] Exactly what
German base lies behind the earliest form of
YiddishYiddish is disputed.
In Weinreich's model, Jewish speakers of
Old FrenchOld French or
Old ItalianOld Italian who
were literate in either liturgical Hebrew or Aramaic, or both,
migrated through Southern Europe to settle in the
Rhine ValleyRhine Valley in an
area known as
LotharingiaLotharingia (later known in
YiddishYiddish as Loter) extending
over parts of
GermanyGermany and France;[12] There, they encountered and were
influenced by Jewish speakers of
High German languagesHigh German languages and several
other German dialects. Both Weinreich and
Solomon Birnbaum developed
this model further in the mid-1950s.[13] In Weinreich's view, this Old
YiddishYiddish substrate later bifurcated into two distinct versions of the
language, Western and Eastern Yiddish.[14] They retained the Semitic
vocabulary and constructions needed for religious purposes and created
a Judeo-German form of speech, sometimes not accepted as a fully
autonomous language.
Later linguistic research has finessed the Weinreich model or provided
alternative approaches to the language's origins, with points of
contention being the characterization of its Germanic base, the source
of its Hebrew/Aramaic adstrata, and the means that and location where
this fusion occurred. Some theorists argue that the fusion occurred
with a Bavarian dialect base.[11][15] The two main candidates for the
germinal matrix of Yiddish, the
RhinelandRhineland and Bavaria, are not
necessarily incompatible. There may have been parallel developments in
the two regions, seeding the Western and Eastern dialects of Modern
Yiddish.
Dovid KatzDovid Katz proposes that
YiddishYiddish emerged from contact between
speakers of High German and Aramaic-speaking
JewsJews from the Middle
East.[8] The lines of development proposed by the different theories
do not necessarily rule out the others (at least not entirely); an
article in
The ForwardThe Forward argues that "in the end, a new 'standard
theory' of Yiddish’s origins will probably be based on the work of
Weinreich and his challengers alike."[16]
Paul Wexler proposed a highly heterodox model in 1991 that took
Yiddish, by which he means primarily eastern Yiddish,[14] not to be
genetically grounded in a Germanic language at all, but rather as
"Judeo-Sorbian" (a proposed Western Slavic language) whose lexicon had
been largely replaced by High German in the 9th to 12th centuries,
when, according to his theory, large numbers of German-speakers
settled in Sorbian and Polabian lands and developed Knaanic, a
Judeo-Slavic language which was subsequently relexified with Old High
German.[11] In more recent work, Wexler has argued that Eastern
YiddishYiddish is unrelated genetically to Western Yiddish. Wexler's model
has met with little academic support, and strong critical challenges,
especially among historical linguists.[11][14]
History[edit]
By the 10th century, a distinctive
Jewish cultureJewish culture had formed in
Central EuropeCentral Europe which came to be called אַשכּנזי‎ Ashkenazi,
"Ashkenazi Jews, from Hebrew: אַשכּנז‎
AshkenazAshkenaz (Genesis
10:3), the medieval
Hebrew name for northern Europe and Germany.[17]
AshkenazAshkenaz was centered on the
RhinelandRhineland and the Palatinate (notably
Worms and Speyer), in what is now the westernmost part of Germany. Its
geographic extent did not coincide with the German principalities of
the time, and it included northern France.
AshkenazAshkenaz bordered on the
area inhabited by another distinctive Jewish cultural group, the
Sephardi Jews, who ranged into southern France. Ashkenazi culture
later spread into
Eastern EuropeEastern Europe with large-scale population
migrations.[citation needed]
Nothing is known with certainty about the vernacular of the earliest
JewsJews in Germany, but several theories have been put forward. The first
language of the Ashkenazim may, as noted above, have been the Aramaic
language, the vernacular of the
JewsJews in Roman-era Judea and ancient
and early medieval Mesopotamia. The widespread use of Aramaic among
the large non-Jewish Syrian trading population of the Roman provinces,
including those in Europe, would have reinforced the use of Aramaic
among
JewsJews engaged in trade. In Roman times, many of the
JewsJews living
in
RomeRome and
Southern ItalySouthern Italy appear to have been Greek-speakers, and
this is reflected in some Ashkenazi personal names (e.g., Kalonymus).
Hebrew, on the other hand, was regarded as a holy language reserved
for ritual and spiritual purposes and not for common use. Much work
needs to be done, though, to fully analyze the contributions of those
languages to Yiddish.[citation needed]
It is generally accepted that early
YiddishYiddish was likely to have
contained elements from other languages of the
Near EastNear East and Europe,
absorbed through migrations. Since some settlers may have come via
FranceFrance and Italy, it is also likely that the Romance-based Jewish
languages of those regions were represented. Traces remain in the
contemporary
YiddishYiddish vocabulary: for example, בענטשן‎
(bentshn, "to bless"), from the Latin benedicere; לייענען‎
(leyenen, "to read"), from the Latin legere; and the personal names
אַנשל‎ Anshl, cognate to Angel or Angelo; בונים‎ Bunim
(probably from "bon homme"). Western
YiddishYiddish includes additional words
of Latin derivation (but still very few): for example, אָרן‎ orn
(to pray), cf. Latin and Italian "orare".[citation needed]
The Jewish community in the
RhinelandRhineland would have encountered the many
dialects from which
Standard GermanStandard German would emerge a few centuries
later. In time, Jewish communities would have been speaking their own
versions of these German dialects, mixed with linguistic elements that
they themselves brought into the region. Although not reflected in the
spoken language, a main point of difference was the use of the Hebrew
alphabet for the recording of the Germanic vernacular, which may have
been adopted either because of the community's familiarity with the
alphabet or to prevent the non-Jewish population from understanding
the correspondence. In addition, there was probably widespread
illiteracy in the non-Hebrew script, with the level of illiteracy in
the non-Jewish communities being even higher. Another point of
difference was the use of Hebrew and Aramaic words. These words and
terms were used because of their familiarity, but more so because in
most cases there were no equivalent terms in the vernacular which
could express the Jewish concepts or describe the objects of cultural
significance.[citation needed]
Written evidence[edit]

The calligraphic segment in the Worms Mahzor

It is not known when
Yiddish orthographyYiddish orthography first developed. The oldest
surviving literary document using it is a blessing in the Worms
machzor,[18] a Hebrew prayer book from 1272. There is a scalable image
online at the indicated reference. The Worms machzor is discussed in
Frakes, 2004, and Baumgarten, ed. Frakes, 2005 – see the
Bibliography at the foot of this article.

Translated
May a good day come to him who carries this prayer book into the
synagogue.

This brief rhyme is decoratively embedded in an otherwise purely
Hebrew text.[19] Nonetheless, it indicates that the
YiddishYiddish of that
day was a more or less regular
Middle High GermanMiddle High German written in the
Hebrew alphabetHebrew alphabet into which Hebrew words –מַחֲזוֹר‬,
makhazor (prayerbook for the High Holy Days) and בֵּיתֿ
הַכְּנֶסֶתֿ‎, "synagogue" (read in
YiddishYiddish as beis
hakneses) –had been included. The niqqud appears as though it
might have been added by a second scribe, in which case it may need to
be dated separately and may not be indicative of the pronunciation of
the rhyme at the time of its initial annotation.
Over the course of the 14th and 15th centuries, songs and poems in
Yiddish, and macaronic pieces in Hebrew and German, began to appear.
These were collected in the late 15th century by Menahem ben Naphtali
Oldendorf.[20] During the same period, a tradition seems to have
emerged of the Jewish community's adapting its own versions of German
secular literature. The earliest
YiddishYiddish epic poem of this sort is the
Dukus Horant, which survives in the famous Cambridge Codex
T.-S.10.K.22. This 14th-century manuscript was discovered in the Cairo
Geniza in 1896, and also contains a collection of narrative poems on
themes from the
Hebrew BibleHebrew Bible and the Haggadah.
Printing[edit]
The advent of the printing press in the 16th century enabled the large
scale production of works, at a cheaper cost, some of which have
survived. One particularly popular work was Elia Levita's Bovo-Bukh
(בָּבָֿא-בּוך), composed around 1507–08 and printed in at
least forty editions, beginning in 1518 (Pesaro). Levita, the earliest
named
YiddishYiddish author, may also have written פּאַריז און
װיענע‎ Pariz un Viene (
ParisParis and Vienna). Another Yiddish
retelling of a chivalric romance, װידװילט Vidvilt (often
referred to as "Widuwilt" by Germanizing scholars), presumably also
dates from the 15th century, although the manuscripts are from the
16th. It is also known as Kinig Artus Hof, an adaptation of the Middle
High German romance Wigalois by Wirnt von Gravenberg.[21] Another
significant writer is Avroham ben Schemuel Pikartei, who published a
paraphrase on the
Book of JobBook of Job in 1557.
Women in the Ashkenazi community were traditionally not literate in
Hebrew, but did read and write Yiddish. A body of literature therefore
developed for which women were a primary audience. This included
secular works, such as the Bovo-Bukh, and religious writing
specifically for women, such as the צאנה וראינה‎ Tseno
Ureno and the תחנות‎ Tkhines. One of the best-known early woman
authors was Glückel of Hameln, whose memoirs are still in print.

A page from the Shemot Devarim (lit. Names of Things), a
Yiddish–Hebrew–Latin–German dictionary and thesaurus, published
by
Elia LevitaElia Levita in 1542

The segmentation of the
YiddishYiddish readership, between women who read
מאַמע־לשון‎ mame-loshn but not לשון־קדש‎
loshn-koydesh, and men who read both, was significant enough that
distinctive typefaces were used for each. The name commonly given to
the semicursive form used exclusively for
YiddishYiddish was
ווײַבערטײַטש‎ (vaybertaytsh = "women's taytsh," shown in
the heading and fourth column in the adjacent illustration), with
square Hebrew letters (shown in the third column) being reserved for
text in that language and Aramaic. This distinction was retained in
general typographic practice through to the early 19th century, with
YiddishYiddish books being set in vaybertaytsh (also termed מעשייט‎
mesheyt or מאַשקעט‎ mashket—the construction is
uncertain).[22]
An additional distinctive semicursive typeface was, and still is, used
for rabbinical commentary on religious texts when Hebrew and Yiddish
appear on the same page. This is commonly termed Rashi script, from
the name of the most renowned early author, whose commentary is
usually printed using this script. (Rashi is also the typeface
normally used when the Sephardic counterpart to Yiddish,
Judaeo-SpanishJudaeo-Spanish or Ladino, is printed in Hebrew script.)
Secularization[edit]
The Western
YiddishYiddish dialect—sometimes pejoratively labeled
Mauscheldeutsch[23] (i. e. "Moses German")[24]—declined in the 18th
century, as the
Age of EnlightenmentAge of Enlightenment and the
HaskalahHaskalah led to a view of
YiddishYiddish as a corrupt dialect. A
MaskilMaskil (from the same root word as
Haskalah) would write about and promote acclimatization to the outside
world.[25] Jewish children began attending secular schools where the
primary language spoken and taught was German, not Yiddish.[25] Owing
to both assimilation to German and the revival of Hebrew, Western
YiddishYiddish survived only as a language of "intimate family circles or of
closely knit trade groups". (Liptzin 1972).
In eastern Europe, the response to these forces took the opposite
direction, with
YiddishYiddish becoming the cohesive force in a secular
culture (see the Yiddishist movement). Notable
YiddishYiddish writers of the
late 19th and early 20th centuries are Sholem Yankev Abramovitch,
writing as Mendele Mocher Sforim; Sholem Rabinovitsh, widely known as
Sholem Aleichem, whose stories about טבֿיה דער
מילכיקער‎ (
Tevye der milkhiker, "
Tevye the Dairyman")
inspired the Broadway musical and film Fiddler on the Roof; and Isaac
Leib Peretz.
20th century[edit]

American World War I-era poster in Yiddish. Translated caption: "Food
will win the war – You came here seeking freedom, now you must help
to preserve it – We must supply the Allies with wheat – Let
nothing go to waste". Colour lithograph, 1917. Digitally restored.

In the early 20th century, especially after the Socialist October
Revolution in Russia,
YiddishYiddish was emerging as a major Eastern European
language. Its rich literature was more widely published than ever,
Yiddish theatreYiddish theatre and
Yiddish cinemaYiddish cinema were booming, and it for a time
achieved status as one of the official languages of the Ukrainian
People's Republic[citation needed], the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist
Republic[citation needed] and the short-lived Galician Soviet
Socialist Republic[citation needed], and the Jewish Autonomous Oblast.
Educational autonomy for
JewsJews in several countries (notably Poland)
after
World War IWorld War I led to an increase in formal Yiddish-language
education, more uniform orthography, and to the 1925 founding of the
YiddishYiddish Scientific Institute, YIVO. In Vilnius, there was debate over
which language should take primacy, Hebrew or Yiddish.[26]
YiddishYiddish changed significantly during the 20th century. Michael Wex
writes, "As increasing numbers of
YiddishYiddish speakers moved from the
Slavic-speaking East to
Western EuropeWestern Europe and the Americas in the late
19th and early 20th centuries, they were so quick to jettison Slavic
vocabulary that the most prominent
YiddishYiddish writers of the time—the
founders of modern
YiddishYiddish literature, who were still living in
Slavic-speaking countries—revised the printed editions of their
oeuvres to eliminate obsolete and 'unnecessary' Slavisms."[27] The
vocabulary used in
IsraelIsrael absorbed many
Modern HebrewModern Hebrew words, and there
was a similar but smaller increase in the English component of Yiddish
in the
United StatesUnited States and, to a lesser extent, the United
Kingdom.[citation needed] This has resulted in some difficulty in
communication between
YiddishYiddish speakers from
IsraelIsrael and those from
other countries.
Phonology[edit]
Main article:
YiddishYiddish phonology
Yiddish phonology is similar to that of Standard German. However, it
does not have final-obstruent devoicing and fortis (voiceless) stop
consonants are unaspirated, and the /χ/ phoneme is invariably uvular,
unlike the German phoneme /x/, which is palatal, velar, or uvular.
YiddishYiddish has a smaller inventory of vowels than
Standard GermanStandard German and no
vowel length distinction.
Numbers of speakers[edit]

On the eve of World War II, there were 11 to 13 million Yiddish
speakers.[8] The Holocaust, however, led to a dramatic, sudden decline
in the use of Yiddish, as the extensive Jewish communities, both
secular and religious, that used
YiddishYiddish in their day-to-day life,
were largely destroyed. Around five million of those killed — 85
percent of the
JewsJews who died in the Holocaust — were speakers of
Yiddish.[9] Although millions of
YiddishYiddish speakers survived the war
(including nearly all
YiddishYiddish speakers in the Americas), further
assimilation in countries such as the
United StatesUnited States and the Soviet
Union, along with the strictly monolingual stance of the Zionist
movement, led to a decline in the use of Eastern Yiddish. However, the
number of speakers within the widely dispersed Haredi (mainly Hasidic)
communities is now increasing. Although used in various countries,
YiddishYiddish has attained official recognition as a minority language only
in Moldova, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Netherlands,[28] and Sweden.
Reports of the number of current
YiddishYiddish speakers vary significantly.
EthnologueEthnologue estimates, based on publications through 1991, that there
were at that time 1.5 million speakers of Eastern Yiddish,[29] of
which 40% lived in Ukraine, 15% in Israel, and 10% in the United
States. The
Modern Language AssociationModern Language Association agrees with fewer than 200,000
in the United States.[30] Western
YiddishYiddish is reported by
EthnologueEthnologue to
have had an ethnic population of 50,000 in 2000, and an undated
speaking population of 5,000, mostly in Germany.[31] A 1996 report by
the
Council of EuropeCouncil of Europe estimates a worldwide Yiddish-speaking
population of about two million.[32] Further demographic information
about the recent status of what is treated as an Eastern–Western
dialect continuum is provided in the
YIVOYIVO Language and Cultural Atlas
of Ashkenazic Jewry (Language and Cultural Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry).
Status as a language[edit]
There has been frequent debate about the extent of the linguistic
independence of
YiddishYiddish from the languages that it absorbed. There has
been periodic assertion that
YiddishYiddish is a dialect of German, or even
"just broken German, more of a linguistic mishmash than a true
language".[33] Even when recognized as an autonomous language, it has
sometimes been referred to as Judeo-German, along the lines of other
Jewish languagesJewish languages like Judeo-Persian,
Judaeo-SpanishJudaeo-Spanish or Zarphatic. A
widely cited summary of attitudes in the 1930s was published by Max
Weinreich, quoting a remark by an auditor of one of his lectures: אַ
שפּראַך איז אַ דיאַלעקט מיט אַן אַרמיי
און פֿלאָט‎ (a shprakh iz a dialekt mit an armey un
flot[34] — "A language is a dialect with an army and navy").
IsraelIsrael and Zionism[edit]

The national languages of
IsraelIsrael are Hebrew and Arabic. The debate in
ZionistZionist circles over the use of
YiddishYiddish in
IsraelIsrael and in the Diaspora
in preference to Hebrew also reflected the tensions between religious
and secular Jewish lifestyles. Many secular Zionists wanted Hebrew as
the sole language of Jews, to contribute to a national cohesive
identity. Traditionally religious Jews, on the other hand, preferred
use of Yiddish, viewing Hebrew as a respected holy language reserved
for prayer and religious study. In the early 20th century, Zionist
activists in Palestine tried to eradicate the use of
YiddishYiddish among
JewsJews in preference to Hebrew, and make its use socially
unacceptable.[35]
This conflict also reflected the opposing views among secular Jews
worldwide, one side seeing Hebrew (and Zionism) and the other Yiddish
(and Internationalism) as the means of defining Jewish nationalism. In
the 1920s and 1930s, גדוד מגיני השפה‬ gdud maginéi
hasafá, "the language defendants regiment", whose motto was
"עברי, דבר עברית‬ ivri, dabér ivrít," that is, "Hebrew
[i.e. Jew], speak Hebrew!", used to tear down signs written in
"foreign" languages and disturb
Yiddish theatreYiddish theatre gatherings.[36]
However, according to linguist Ghil'ad Zuckermann, the members of this
group in particular, and the Hebrew revival in general, did not
succeed in uprooting
YiddishYiddish patterns (as well as the patterns of
other European languages Jewish immigrants spoke) within what he calls
"Israeli", i.e. Modern Hebrew. Zuckermann believes that "Israeli does
include numerous Hebrew elements resulting from a conscious revival
but also numerous pervasive linguistic features deriving from a
subconscious survival of the revivalists’ mother tongues, e.g.
Yiddish."[37]
After the founding of the State of Israel, a massive wave of Jewish
immigrants from Arab countries arrived. In short order, these Mizrahi
JewsJews and their descendants would account for nearly half the Jewish
population. While all were at least familiar with Hebrew as a
liturgical language, essentially none had any contact with or affinity
for
YiddishYiddish (some, of Sephardic origin, spoke Judaeo-Spanish, others
various Judeo-
ArabicArabic languages). Thus, Hebrew emerged as the dominant
linguistic common denominator between the different population groups.
In religious circles, it is the Ashkenazi Haredi Jews, particularly
the Hasidic
JewsJews and the Lithuanian yeshiva world (see Lithuanian
Jews), who continue to teach, speak and use Yiddish, making it a
language used regularly by hundreds of thousands of Haredi
JewsJews today.
The largest of these centers are in
Bnei BrakBnei Brak and Jerusalem.
There is a growing revival of interest in
YiddishYiddish culture among
secular Israelis, with the flourishing of new proactive cultural
organizations like YUNG YiDiSH, as well as
Yiddish theatreYiddish theatre (usually
with simultaneous translation to Hebrew and Russian) and young people
are taking university courses in Yiddish, some achieving considerable
fluency.[38]
Former Soviet Union[edit]
In the
Soviet UnionSoviet Union during the 1920s,
YiddishYiddish was promoted as the
language of the Jewish proletariat.

It was one of the official languages of the Byelorussian Soviet
Socialist Republic. Until 1938, the Emblem of the Byelorussian Soviet
Socialist Republic included the motto
Workers of the world, unite!Workers of the world, unite! in
Yiddish.
YiddishYiddish was also official language in several agricultural
districts of the Galician Soviet Socialist Republic.
A public educational system entirely based on the
YiddishYiddish language was
established and comprised kindergartens, schools, and higher
educational institutions (technical schools, rabfaks and other
university departments). At the same time, Hebrew was considered a
bourgeois language and its use was generally discouraged. The vast
majority of the Yiddish-language cultural institutions were closed in
the late 1930s along with cultural institutions of other ethnic
minorities lacking administrative entities of their own. The last
Yiddish-language schools, theaters and publications were closed by the
end of the 1940s. It continued to be spoken widely for decades,
nonetheless, in areas with compact Jewish populations (primarily in
Moldova, Ukraine, and to a lesser extent Belarus).
In the former Soviet states, recently active
YiddishYiddish authors include
Yoysef Burg (
ChernivtsiChernivtsi 1912–2009) and
Olexander Beyderman (b. 1949,
Odessa). Publication of an earlier
YiddishYiddish periodical (דער
פֿרײַנד‎ - der fraynd; lit. "The Friend"), was resumed in
2004 with דער נײַער פֿרײַנד‎ (der nayer fraynd; lit.
"The New Friend", Saint Petersburg).
Russia[edit]
According to the 2010 census, 1,683 people spoke
YiddishYiddish in Russia,
approximately 1% of all the
JewsJews of the Russian Federation.[39]
According to Mikhail Shvydkoy, former Minister of Culture of Russia
and himself of Jewish origin,
YiddishYiddish culture in Russia is gone, and
its revival is unlikely.[40]

From my point of view,
YiddishYiddish culture today isn't just fading away,
but disappearing. It is stored as memories, as fragments of phrases,
as books that have long gone unread. ...
YiddishYiddish culture is dying and
this should be treated with utmost calm. There is no need to pity that
which cannot be resurrected — it has receded into the world of the
enchanting past, where it should remain. Any artificial culture, a
culture without replenishment, is meaningless. ... Everything that
happens with
YiddishYiddish culture is transformed into a kind of
cabaret—epistolary genre, nice, cute to the ear and the eye, but
having nothing to do with high art, because there is no natural,
national soil. In Russia, it is the memory of the departed, sometimes
sweet memories. But it's the memories of what will never be again.
Perhaps that's why these memories are always so sharp.[40]

Banner from the first issue of the Yidishe Folksshtime ("Yiddish
People's Voice"), published in Stockholm, 12 January 1917.

In June 1999, the Swedish Parliament enacted legislation giving
YiddishYiddish legal status[47] as one of the country's official minority
languages (entering into effect in April 2000). The rights thereby
conferred are not detailed, but additional legislation was enacted in
June 2006 establishing a new governmental agency, The Swedish National
Language Council,[48] the mandate of which instructs it to "collect,
preserve, scientifically research, and spread material about the
national minority languages", naming them all explicitly, including
Yiddish. When announcing this action, the government made an
additional statement about "simultaneously commencing completely new
initiatives for...
YiddishYiddish [and the other minority languages]".
The Swedish government publishes documents in Yiddish, of which the
most recent details the national action plan for human rights.[49] An
earlier one provides general information about national minority
language policies.[50]
On 6 September 2007, it became possible to register Internet domains
with
YiddishYiddish names in the national top-level domain .SE.[51]
The first
JewsJews were permitted to reside in
SwedenSweden during the late 18th
century. The Jewish population in
SwedenSweden is estimated at around
20,000. Out of these 2,000–6,000 claim to have at least some
knowledge of
YiddishYiddish according to various reports and surveys. In
2009, the number of native speakers among these was estimated by
linguist Mikael Parkvall to be 750–1,500. It is believed that
virtually all native speakers of
YiddishYiddish in
SwedenSweden today are adults,
and most of them elderly.[52]
United States[edit]

YiddishYiddish distribution in the United States.
More than 100,000 speakers
More than 10,000 speakers
More than 5,000 speakers
More than 1,000 speakers
Fewer than 1,000 speakers

At first, in the
United StatesUnited States most
JewsJews were of Sephardic origin, and
hence did not speak Yiddish. It was not until the mid-to-late 19th
century, as first German, then Eastern European,
JewsJews arrived in the
nation, that
YiddishYiddish became dominant within the immigrant community.
This helped to bond
JewsJews from many countries.
פֿאָרווערטס‎ (Forverts – The Forward) was one of seven
YiddishYiddish daily newspapers in New York City, and other Yiddish
newspapers served as a forum for
JewsJews of all European backgrounds. In
1915, the circulation of the daily
YiddishYiddish newspapers was half a
million in
New York CityNew York City alone, and 600,000 nationally. In addition,
thousands more subscribed to the numerous weekly papers and the many
magazines.[53]
The typical circulation in the 21st century is a few thousand. The
Forward still appears weekly and is also available in an online
edition.[54] It remains in wide distribution, together with דער
אַלגעמיינער זשורנאַל‎ (der algemeyner zhurnal –
Algemeiner Journal; algemeyner = general), a
ChabadChabad newspaper which is
also published weekly and appears online.[55] The widest-circulation
YiddishYiddish newspapers are probably the weekly issues
Der Yid (דער
איד‎ "The Jew"),
Der Blatt (דער בלאַט‎; blat "paper")
and Di Tzeitung (די צייטונג‎ "the newspaper"). Several
additional newspapers and magazines are in regular production, such as
the weekly אידישער טריביון
YiddishYiddish Tribune and the
monthly publications דער שטערן‎ (Der Shtern "The Star") and
דער בליק‎ (Der Blik "The View"). (The romanized titles cited
in this paragraph are in the form given on the masthead of each
publication and may be at some variance both with the literal Yiddish
title and the transliteration rules otherwise applied in this
article.) Thriving
YiddishYiddish theater, especially in the New York City
YiddishYiddish Theatre District, kept the language vital. Interest in klezmer
music provided another bonding mechanism.
Most of the Jewish immigrants to the New York metropolitan area during
the years of
Ellis IslandEllis Island considered
YiddishYiddish their native language;
however, native
YiddishYiddish speakers tended not to pass the language on to
their children, who assimilated and spoke English. For example, Isaac
Asimov states in his autobiography, In Memory Yet Green, that Yiddish
was his first and sole spoken language and remained so for about two
years after he emigrated to the
United StatesUnited States as a small child. By
contrast, Asimov's younger siblings, born in the United States, never
developed any degree of fluency in Yiddish.
Many "Yiddishisms," like "Italianisms" and "Spanishisms," entered New
York City English, often used by
JewsJews and non-
JewsJews alike, unaware of
the linguistic origin of the phrases.
YiddishYiddish words used in English
were documented extensively by
Leo RostenLeo Rosten in The Joys of Yiddish; see
also the list of English words of
YiddishYiddish origin.
In 1975, the film Hester Street, much of which is in Yiddish, was
released. It was later chosen to be on the Library of Congress
National Film RegistryNational Film Registry for being considered a "culturally,
historically, or aesthetically significant" film.[56]
In 1976, the Canadian-born American author
Saul BellowSaul Bellow received the
Nobel Prize in Literature. He was fluent in Yiddish, and translated
several
YiddishYiddish poems and stories into English, including Isaac
Bashevis Singer's "Gimpel the Fool".
In 1978, Isaac Bashevis Singer, a writer in the
YiddishYiddish language, who
was born in
PolandPoland and lived in the United States, received the Nobel
Prize in Literature.
Legal scholars
Eugene VolokhEugene Volokh and
Alex KozinskiAlex Kozinski argue that
YiddishYiddish is
"supplanting Latin as the spice in American legal argot."[57][58]
Present U.S. speaker population[edit]
In the 2000
United StatesUnited States Census, 178,945 people in the United States
reported speaking
YiddishYiddish at home. Of these speakers, 113,515 lived in
New York (63.43% of American
YiddishYiddish speakers); 18,220 in Florida
(10.18%); 9,145 in
New JerseyNew Jersey (5.11%); and 8,950 in California
(5.00%). The remaining states with speaker populations larger than
1,000 are
PennsylvaniaPennsylvania (5,445),
OhioOhio (1,925),
MichiganMichigan (1,945),
MassachusettsMassachusetts (2,380),
MarylandMaryland (2,125),
IllinoisIllinois (3,510), Connecticut
(1,710), and
ArizonaArizona (1,055). The population is largely elderly:
72,885 of the speakers were older than 65, 66,815 were between 18 and
64, and only 39,245 were age 17 or lower.[59] In the six years since
the 2000 census, the 2006
American Community SurveyAmerican Community Survey reflected an
estimated 15 percent decline of people speaking
YiddishYiddish at home in the
U.S. to 152,515.[60] In 2011, the number of persons in the United
States above the age of 5 speaking
YiddishYiddish at home was 160,968.[61]
There are a few predominantly Hasidic communities in the United States
in which
YiddishYiddish remains the majority language. Kiryas Joel, New York
is one such; in the 2000 census, nearly 90% of residents of Kiryas
Joel reported speaking
YiddishYiddish at home.[62]
United Kingdom[edit]
There are well over 30,000
YiddishYiddish speakers in the United Kingdom, and
several thousand children now have
YiddishYiddish as a first language. The
largest group of
YiddishYiddish speakers in Britain reside in the Stamford
Hill district of North London, but there are sizable communities in
northwest London, Leeds,
ManchesterManchester and Gateshead.[63] The Yiddish
readership in the UK is mainly reliant upon imported material from the
United StatesUnited States and
IsraelIsrael for newspapers, magazines and other
periodicals. However, the London-based weekly Jewish Tribune has a
small section in
YiddishYiddish called אידישע טריבונע‎ Yidishe
Tribune. From 1910s to 1950s,
LondonLondon had a daily
YiddishYiddish newspaper
called די צײַט (Di Tsayt,
YiddishYiddish pronunciation: [dɪ
tsaɪt]; in English, The Time), founded, and edited from offices in
WhitechapelWhitechapel Road, by Roumanian born Morris Myer, succeeded on his
death in 1943 by his son Harry. There were also from time to time
YiddishYiddish newspapers in Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and Leeds.
Canada[edit]
MontrealMontreal had and to some extent still has one of the most thriving
YiddishYiddish communities in North America.
YiddishYiddish was Montreal's third
language (after French and English) for the entire first half of the
twentieth century. Der
Keneder Adler ("The Canadian Eagle", founded by
Hirsch Wolofsky), Montreal’s daily
YiddishYiddish newspaper, appeared from
1907 to 1988.[64] The
Monument-NationalMonument-National was the center of Yiddish
theater from 1896 until the construction of the Saidye Bronfman Centre
for the Arts (now the Segal Centre for Performing Arts), inaugurated
on September 24, 1967, where the established resident theater, the
Dora Wasserman
YiddishYiddish Theatre, remains the only permanent Yiddish
theatre in North America. The theatre group also tours Canada, US,
Israel, and Europe.[65]
Even though
YiddishYiddish has receded, it is the immediate ancestral
language of Montrealers like Mordecai Richler,
Leonard CohenLeonard Cohen as well
as former interim city mayor Michael Applebaum. Besides
Yiddish-speaking activists, it remains today the native everyday
language of 15,000
MontrealMontreal Hassidim.
Religious communities[edit]

A typical poster-hung wall in Jewish Brooklyn, New York

The major exception to the decline of spoken
YiddishYiddish can be found in
Haredi communities all over the world. In some of the more closely
knit such communities,
YiddishYiddish is spoken as a home and schooling
language, especially in Hasidic, Litvish, or
Yeshivish communities,
such as Brooklyn's Borough Park, Williamsburg, and Crown Heights, and
in the communities of Monsey, Kiryas Joel, and New Square in New York
(over 88% of the population of Kiryas Joel is reported to speak
YiddishYiddish at home.[66]) Also in New Jersey,
YiddishYiddish is widely spoken
mostly in Lakewood Township, but also in smaller towns with yeshivas,
such as Passaic, Teaneck, and elsewhere.
YiddishYiddish is also widely spoken
in the Jewish community in Antwerp, and in Haredi communities such as
the ones in London, Manchester, and Montreal.
YiddishYiddish is also spoken
in many Haredi communities throughout Israel. Among most Ashkenazi
Haredim, Hebrew is generally reserved for prayer, while
YiddishYiddish is
used for religious studies, as well as a home and business language.
In Israel, however, Haredim commonly speak Hebrew, with the notable
exception of many Hasidic communities. However, many Haredim who use
Modern HebrewModern Hebrew also understand Yiddish. There are some who send their
children to schools in which the primary language of instruction is
Yiddish. Members of anti-
ZionistZionist Haredi groups such as the Satmar
Hasidim, who view the commonplace use of Hebrew as a form of Zionism,
use
YiddishYiddish almost exclusively.
Hundreds of thousands of young children around the globe have been,
and are still, taught to translate the texts of the
TorahTorah into
Yiddish. This process is called טײַטשן‎ (taytshn) –
"translating". Most Ashkenazi yeshivas' highest level lectures in
TalmudTalmud and
Halakha are delivered in
YiddishYiddish by the rosh yeshivas as
well as ethical talks of the Musar movement. Hasidic rebbes generally
use only
YiddishYiddish to converse with their followers and to deliver their
various
TorahTorah talks, classes, and lectures. The linguistic style and
vocabulary of
YiddishYiddish have influenced the manner in which many
Orthodox
JewsJews who attend yeshivas speak English. This usage is
distinctive enough that it has been dubbed "Yeshivish".
While Hebrew remains the exclusive language of Jewish prayer, the
Hasidim have mixed some
YiddishYiddish into their Hebrew, and are also
responsible for a significant secondary religious literature written
in Yiddish. For example, the tales about the
Baal Shem TovBaal Shem Tov were
written largely in Yiddish. The
TorahTorah Talks of the late
ChabadChabad leaders
are published in their original form, Yiddish. In addition, some
prayers, such as "God of Abraham", were composed and are recited in
Yiddish.
Modern
YiddishYiddish education[edit]

A road sign in
YiddishYiddish (except for the word "sidewalk") at an official
construction site in the Monsey hamlet, a community with thousands of
YiddishYiddish speakers, in Ramapo, New York.

There has been a resurgence in
YiddishYiddish learning in recent times among
many from around the world with Jewish ancestry. The language which
had lost many of its native speakers during WWII has been making
somewhat of a comeback.[67] In Poland, which traditionally had Yiddish
speaking communities, a particular museum has begun to revive Yiddish
education and culture.[68] Located in Kraków, the Galicia Jewish
Museum offers classes in
YiddishYiddish Language Instruction and workshops on
YiddishYiddish Songs. The museum has taken steps to revive the culture
through concerts and events held on site.[69] There are various
Universities worldwide which now offer
YiddishYiddish programs based on the
YIVOYIVOYiddishYiddish standard. Many of these programs are held during the
summer and are attended by
YiddishYiddish enthusiasts from around the world.
One such school located within
VilniusVilnius University (
VilniusVilnius Yiddish
Institute) was the first
YiddishYiddish center of higher learning to be
established in post-Holocaust Eastern Europe.
VilniusVilnius Yiddish
Institute is an integral part of the four-century-old Vilnius
University. Published
YiddishYiddish scholar and researcher
Dovid KatzDovid Katz is
among the Faculty.[70]
Despite this growing popularity among many American Jews,[71] finding
opportunities for practical use of
YiddishYiddish is becoming increasingly
difficult, and thus many students have trouble learning to speak the
language.[72] One solution has been the establishment of a farm in
Goshen, New York for Yiddishists.[73]
Internet community[edit]
Google TranslateGoogle Translate includes
YiddishYiddish as one of its languages,[74][75] as
does.
Over ten thousand
YiddishYiddish texts, estimated as over half of all the
published works in Yiddish, are now online based on the work of the
YiddishYiddishBookBook Center, volunteers, and the Internet Archive.[76]
Many websites on the Internet are in Yiddish. In January 2013, The
Forward announced the launch of the new daily version of their
newspaper's website, which has been active since 1999 as an online
weekly, supplied with radio and video programs, a literary section for
fiction writers and a special blog written in local contemporary
Hasidic dialects.[77]
Computer scientist
Raphael Finkel maintains a hub of Yiddish-language
resources, including a searchable dictionary[78] and spell
checker.[79]
In late 2016, Motorola, Inc. released its smartphones with keyboard
access for the
YiddishYiddish language in its foreign language option.
See also[edit]

A 2008 Election poster in front of a store in Village of New Square,
Town of Ramapo, New York, entirely in Yiddish. The candidates' names
are transliterated into Yiddish.